Gabon coup d'État: Military leader sworn in as transitional head of state
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00:00 Czar correspondent Catherine Norris-Trent sent this update from
00:03 Liverpool. General Brice Oligi N'Gema in his speech at his inauguration
00:11 ceremony promised to return power to civilian hands and to hold credible, free
00:19 and transparent elections but he didn't say when that would be. He also said he'd
00:24 be holding consultations on drawing up a new constitution for Gabon and putting
00:30 that to a referendum and he also talked about perhaps overhauling Gabon's
00:35 electoral system. So you know that that sounds like a great deal of work which
00:40 could take quite a long time so there's no date for this transition over which
00:46 he's presiding to end but from his pronouncements yesterday it doesn't seem
00:50 like it would be a rapid affair. He did say that he would be forming a
00:55 government within the coming days we didn't get much more detail than that
00:59 apart from that he said he would be involving experienced people. He and
01:04 other members of the military which seized power toppling Ali Bongo last
01:11 week have been holding consultations with civil society, with business
01:15 leaders, some members of the opposition. So they say that they're trying to
01:20 include a larger number of Gabonese people as possible but at the moment
01:25 there are no concrete guarantees on just when the return to civilian rule might be.